Carnival Souls

Prisoner

"Will be okay for now," finished Jacks. "Bebinn needs her and she isn't easily replaced. Wherever Bebinn or Atlas have her now, she'll be okay. It's you we need to worry about."

"Me?"

"Atlas knows you know. She'll know you guessed what happened to Lira. No offense, but it's easier to replace you when Genzel is still here. You have to pretend that you are obedient, that you understand what happened to Lira, deny that you know her arrangement with Zabaria, to buy yourself more time. I don't know if she'll believe you, but we need just a little more time. Go to Genzel's, work as normal, don't be caught out alone, stay with me tonight and we'll make sure Zabaria knows what Bebinn is doing." Jacks took another long look at Owen's face and said, "The best way for you to help Lira right now is to do nothing. Trust me."

###

Lira woke in a cell, startled awake by the sound of metal ringing as it hit the stone floor. The pain in her neck and head from the jolt joined the pain already present from falling asleep propped against the damp wall. She rubbed the grit from her eyes and stared blearily out of the cell bars. Atlas stood there, her face as impassive as ever. Lira sat up straighter, mustering a glare. She hadn't seen the messenger since the girl had locked her in a closet yesterday.

At least, Lira assumed it was only yesterday. She had only slept once since she had been escorted down here and she hadn't been in the closet all that long before Bebinn had opened the door.

The witch's facial expression had been one of tight control, though strangely it contained none of the thunderous fury Lira had been expecting. Instead it was the immensely annoyed look of a parent who had lost patience with their child for the last time. She complimented it with a curt, "I'm very disappointed in you, dear. Follow me."

Still in shock from Atlas' betrayal, Lira had followed in a sort of dazed, numb state as Bebinn had led her down the now familiar stairs to the cells. With a rusty clang, she had slid an empty cell open and gestured Lira inside with all the formality of placing a child in timeout.

"We will discuss this later," she had said coldly. "I have other tasks to attend to at the moment."

Now Atlas had taken Bebinn's place, her crimson-tinged eyes glowing in the sinister manner of a predator toying with its prey in the dark. "What do you want?" snapped Lira.

Lira tried to hang onto her anger, stoke it as she would a fire. It was hard, even with seeing her friend's face on the other side of the bars, as though her body refused to believe what her mind knew: Atlas had betrayed her. Her anger beaded on her skin like sweat, in her and on her, but easily wiped away in her struggle of trying to understand and her sorrow at what their friendship had amounted to.

Atlas said nothing, only used her foot to slide a bowl of stew, placed atop the metal tray that had woken her, closer. Some of it sloshed over the sides; there was no spoon. Lira stared at the bowl, ignoring the hunger raking at her stomach, and said in a harsh, aching whisper, "Why?"

"You never do seem to tire of asking that question," said Atlas. "And even when I gave you an answer, you were never satisfied. You always wanted more."

"I thought you were my friend," said Lira. "I thought you wanted to help me."

An expression of contempt crossed Atlas' face as she looked down upon Lira. "I've done nothing but help you since you got here," she said. "And you repaid my kindness in betrayal."

Lira's mouth gaped open. "Betrayed you?" she managed to sputter. "You sold me out to Bebinn!"

"After you went behind my back to Zabaria," Atlas spat.